6)KH Lo (Seattle Mariners)
This team was definitely top-heavy on pitching and despite the talented pitching depth, finished 2nd at the AAA Asian Championships.

In a follow up to an earlier story on CL Huang, Baseballfly reported that Huang was basically ready to sign with the Yomiuri Giants. However, after he signed with Jerry Sung, Huang changed his mind and is now set on playing baseball in the US.

MLB:
The Dodgers are down 6-0 to the Giants in the 4th inning. Hu is currently 0-1. Follow Hu's AB's here.

NPB:
The Fighters lost to the Marines 2-1. CS Yang was 0-3 with a RBI. Box

CPBL:

Whales 1 - Lions 0: Whales SP Fu-Te Ni pitched a CG shutout, allowing only 3 hits - to go along with 5 K's and 0 walks. Ni outdueled Pete Munro, who threw 8 innings and matched Ni pitch-for-pitch. PM allowed only 1 hit and 1 unearned run over 8 IP - he also had 7 K's and 1 walk allowed. TB was 0-3 and KC Kao was 1-3 for the Lions. Whales CF Jen-Chieh Hsu drove in the game's only run - he was 1-3.

Elephants 9 - Bulls 4: Nic Ungs won his second straight decision and game MVP honors with a strong performance - he allowed 1 run on 5 hits over 7 IP. Elephants 3B Chiang Chen was 3-5 with a double and 4 RBI's/C Chih-Hung Chen was 1-3 with 3 RBI's/RF Huai-Shan Chen was 1-3 with a RBI/1B Chia-Chia was 2-2 with a RBI/DH CYC was 2-5 with 2 doubles. For the Bulls, Tarzan was 1-3/DH Chien-Ming Chang was 1-3 with 2 RBI's/1B Kuo-Long Hsu was 2-4 with a double and a RBI.

4 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Hu went 0-3 today with no Ks but the rest of the team didnt fare much better either - collecting only 6 hits total and 2 runs scored on a homer. As for Huang Chih Lung, its great to hear that he wants to play in the US. I was afraid that if he played for Japan, they would overwork him or change his pitching mechanics like all the other Taiwanese pitchers that went to Japan. Seriously, none of our pitchers have done that well ever since they went to the NPB. I just hope that the US will give him a chance. He's got raw stuff- 94 to 95 mph heater but he's small. He's only 5,9 I believe. How old is the kid right now? Maybe he'll get a little bit taller and he'll get more consideration from US teams.

it's depressing to read the posts on baseballfly. Basically, the talents are being exploited by both the government and some Taiwanese agents.

It appears that some MLB teams have already withdrawn their interests on Huang due to the lack of professional presentation on Sung's part (i.e. a resume that is filled with poor grammar, spelling, and an awful looking photo of the youth that gives anything but a good first impression to the scouts). The question now is what will happen to Huang if he is not picked up by a MLB team? It will be much harder for any other NPB teams to be willing to risk going after Huang because of the bad rep he will no doubt carry with him by changing mind and not sign with the Giants. And then what?

In another post on baseballfly, which also appeared on this blog last Friday in regards to WMG held a work out for 4 youth pitchers. It's almost scandalous as to how WMG was able to do so. Apparently there is a law in Taiwan that prohibits school-aged baseball talents (high school and younger?) to sign private contracts with a professional team before graduation, schools have been fined for violating such rules (e.g. Chih-Hsien Chiang, Chin-Lung Lo, and Wang-Yi Lin's schools). The Chinese Taipei Baseball Association, a government entity, made it possible for WMG to showcase the talents under the disguise of "training camp for junior NT in the US". It goes without questions that certain CTBA personnels are receiving some form of benefits from WMG through the "hook up". So basically, CTBA is using the law to give itself exclusive rights to represent the young talents over other competing independent agents in Taiwan.

On one hand, I'm so proud and glad that Taiwan is producing quality talents in the sport of baseball and that they are gaining international recognitions for what they can do at a professional level. But it saddens me greatly that agents and, even worse, their own government are taking advantage of their ignorance. Not to mention, in (at least) some cases, it's done at the expense of the futures of these talents.

Good post Tsong. If what the CTBA has done is true, then I can't see how any kid or competing sports agencies would respect the "rules" set by the CTBA in the future. This incident makes the CTBA out to be a bunch of hypocrites. This could open the door for younger kids to test the market in the future.